¹On 5 March 2026, I did a long interview — two hours — with Gita Wirjawan, the former Indonesian Minister of Trade. It was my third long interview with Gita, and as was the case with the first two interviews, it was a pleasure going back and forth with him. We had a wide-ranging discussion about the various ongoing conflicts in the world and where we are headed in the years ahead. As one would expect, I painted a dark picture.
²Recorded on March 5, 2026.
Gita Wirjawanª:
In his third appearance at Endgame, John Mearsheimer³ talks about the latest developments in global politics on the brink of another world war. The conversation spans the Iran conflict, the Ukraine war, East Asia, and the possibility of nuclear war — soon.
More on this episode:
0:00:00 – Intro
0:01:57 – Monroe Doctrine: History & Future
0:09:14 – East Asia: “High priority item”
0:12:34 – “Bond between Iran and China will grow”
0:13:20 – Why the Ukraine War is a miscalculation
0:15:33 – Board of Peace
0:27:41 – The price you pay for a US alliance
0:32:16 – Israel’s end goal for Iran
0:39:42 – US-Iran, another miscalculation?
0:46:33 – How long will the US/Israel-Iran War last
0:54:27 – Ground troops
0:59:45 – Nuclear war possibility
1:02:48 – Are we in World War III already?
1:06:10 – Nuclear proliferation in a multipolar world
1:13:38 – Will the Shia and Sunnis come together?
1:19:16 – Economic repercussions
1:25:27 – Foreseeing US politics
1:44:27 – Frozen conflict in Ukraine
1:53:27 – Messages for aspiring diplomats
About the guest³:
³John Joseph Mearsheimer is an international relations theorist (a realist) who served as the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982.
ªAbout the host:
Gita Wirjawan is an Indonesian entrepreneur and educator. He is the founding partner of Ikhlas Capital and the chairman of Ancora Group. Currently, he is teaching at Stanford as a visiting scholar with Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy.
